A true Englishman's castle

Let us, unfashionably, give thanks for English laws and the English legal system. The Pope might not approve , but God knows we need the courts to reassure us that there are still some certainties in an uncertain world, still some traditions and standards being jealously, zealously upheld. I refer, obviously, to the case of the Surrey farmer and his castle . What finer example could there be of the delicate balance a civilised society has to strike between rugged individualism and the relish for rules upon which middle England rests? And who, please, could smother a smile at the cunning countryman's patient four-year wait before he hurled the straw and tarpaulin aside to reveal a fully formed castle no longer in need of planning permission? A regular dream home would have been fun enough: but a castle! This one, moreover, has turrets cunningly constructed from grain silos and a " stained glass lantern feature " over its central hall. No matter that it has the touch of that renowned medieval construction expert, Sir Barratt de Wimpey; nor that it looks incapable or resisting a siege from the Sheriff of Nottingham, even on one of his good days: this is a true Englishman's castle. Cast your mind to Mr Wemmick, the clerk in Great Expectations , and his castle in Walworth: Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. "My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" "Exactly. And, I am also delighted to note, both castles have cannon" "At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a Stinger." Almost as delighted, in fact, as I am with the names, always vital, in the current case: the farmer is called Mr Robert Fidler, of Honeycrock Farm; the judge at the high court was Sir Thayne Forbes. There is also a fine quote from Mrs Fidler concerning the absence of their son Harry from playschool the day he was supposed to do a painting of his home: "We couldn't have him drawing a big blue haystack – people might have asked questions." And, again, as with the best cases, it all turns on a splendidly nuanced interpretation only approximately linked to common understanding: Forbes upheld the planning inspector's finding that four years had not, in fact, elapsed from the completion of the said erection, since the last act of erection was clearly the whipping away of the straw and tarpaulin. Excellent. There is probably no better time to tell you, without comment, that Forbes also presided over the trial of Harold Shipman. Or to introduce, on the pretext of both a mention of a religious figure and a planning dispute, and because the opportunity is unlikely to arise again, one of my most cherished newspaper headlines: "Vicar Fights Erection In High Street". The more cerebral among you will doubtless prefer to dwell on the resonances with Beachcomber 's Mr Justice Cocklecarrot and his 12 red-bearded dwarfs; and, of course, with AP Herbert's Misleading Cases, that tremendous series of fictional, challenging knotty legal conundrums involving Albert Haddock as litigant and the long-suffering Mr Justice Swallow. The most famous are probably the cheque written on the cow ("Was the cow crossed?") and the clash over Mr Haddock's rowing boat and the differing rights of way on land and sea on a flooded road. In another, Haddock jumped off Hammersmith Bridge "for fun" and found himself in deep water and court. The judge summed up thus: The appellant made the general answer that this was a free country and a man can do what he likes if he does nobody any harm ... It cannot be too clearly understood that this is not a free country, and it will be an evil day for the legal profession when it is ... and least of all may they do unusual actions "for fun". People must not do things for fun. There is no reference to fun in any Act of Parliament. Quite. But, heaven be praised, Fidler's lawyer says an appeal is being considered as the case raises important issues of planning law. What larks!